Game 492: Labyrinth Master (1989)

 

The game begins.

        

Labyrinth Master

United States

Independently developed; published by T&D Subscription Software

Released 1989 for TRS-80 Color Computer
Date Started: 12 June 2023

Date Ended: 12 June 2023

Total Hours: 1

Difficulty: Very Easy-Easy (1.5/5)

Final Rating: 7

Ranking at Time of Posting: 10/508 (2%)

    

If you lived in the 1980s, had a personal computer, loved video games, and had a budget of $70 a year, you had a choice. You could buy maybe two AAA titles from the most respected developers, like Dragon Wars (Interplay) or Hero's Quest (Sierra), or you could buy a disk subscription from a company like T&D Subscription Software. They would send you a disk a month with 10 programs on it. In December 1989, your disk would have had:

    

1. Music 4 Voice
2. Honeycomb
3. Point of Sale
4. Orbs Adventure
5. IBM - COCO
6. Civil War
7. List Utilities
8. Break-in Coco III
9. Labyrinth Master
10. Color Car Action
    

         

Mugging a skeleton.

      

We don't know what most of these are. Some are clearly non-games and some just haven't been analyzed and entered into any databases. Thankfully, of over a thousand titles T&D published over the years, Labyrinth Master and Monsters and Magic (1988), which I reviewed in December, are the only two that anyone has (so far) tagged as RPGs.

     

Giant floating eye.

       

Labyrinth Master kind-of passes the test, but just barely. It's credited to a Jay Braxmaier, who also wrote a T&D game called Night of the Ninja (1989). When the game begins, the character is dropped in the corner of a tiled, three-dimensional dungeon. His goal is to kill all the monsters in the dungeon. The monsters, which are found in fixed locations and do not move, consist of skeletons, giant floating eyes, minotaurs, and medusas. Every enemy he kills adds a bit to his strength, and every other enemy he kills, up to the eighth, gives him a new piece of equipment. Equipment adds to strength and maximum hit points.

       

The titular labyrinth.

    

At the beginning of the game, you're only strong enough to kill skeletons. Fortunately, you can push past other monsters that try to block your path. The second slain enemy gives you a shield, the fourth a sword, the sixth a helm, and the eighth a suit of armor. You can get those items from the four skeletons in the first half of the labyrinth. Frankly, by the time you have the helm, you're strong enough to take on any enemy in the maze. Once you figure this out, winning takes about 15 minutes, most of it spent waiting for health to recharge after battles.

 

Combat involves mashing the "A" button--the game's only control other than arrows for movement. You get no visual feedback during combat. If you've timed things right, the enemy poofs out of existence before your health meter disappears.

    

Medusa.

      

Your "kills" meter fills up with every kill. It reaches its apex when you've slain the last enemy. At that point, how does the game reward you? It freezes! (I don't mean there's a bug; I think the game was designed to just stop the moment the meter is full.) This is the same thing that happens when you die. Here, the game teaches that victory and death are two sides of the same coin. 

       

As soon as this combat is over, the game will end.

      

The only way this game could be remotely challenging is if you're too dumb to figure out the pattern. You might take on a giant eye for your fist battle, lose, and think, "Wow, this game is hard." So I guess the game teaches that when you run into an insurmountable obstacle, just leave it alone for now and come back later when you're stronger. Good life advice, that. Another thing it teaches is to spend your $70 on the two AAA games instead.

   

****

This one was pretty short, so I'll have the next in a day or so rather than the usual 2.5 days.